Infamy - 汚名

14

two and a half years later

"Nagato!" I cried as I scrambled after the fast-footed seven year old boy. With a grin on his face, he reached his tiny hands up to turn the doorknob and succeeded brilliantly. I watched with pride and horror alike as the door swung open. With grit teeth, I rushed forward but was halted as soon as my pinky toe banged into the leg of the low round table in my living room. With a yelp and an unexpected loss of balance, I fell back and crashed into the table top. Ugh.

"It's food!"

Crap.

"Trying to get out of your duties as a chuunin once again, I see," Isamashii remarked as I sat up to stare through the messy red strands of my hair to note that Nagato was correct. He came with food.

"I can't really do anything about waiting for the babysitter to show up," I mumbled, giving him a pointed glare. Nagato hopped up merrily with his bright laugh ringing in the air. With a sigh, I stood up, brushing back my messy mane of unkempt hair. Isamashii just breezily walked past me to make himself at home on my fraying-at-the-edges couch. Pachi followed in not long after, always the nervous one, and came to rest at Isamashii's feet.

"I'm here now, aren't I?"

"You're the bane of my existence," I declared, watching with slight interest as Nagato clambered up the couch to set himself right next to Isamashii, fingers inching towards the bag of food that smelled distinctly like bread and red bean paste. It always fascinated me to watch Nagato move. Even if he had grown significantly as time went by, he was still as clumsy and short as ever.

"I swear, if you're feeding him sweets, I will come after you and murder you in your sleep," I threatened, shivering in horror when I thought of Nagato on a sugar rush. One could not babble on the way this seven year old could.

"You worry too much, Kushina," he nonchalantly informed me with a smile as he gave Nagato a roll of bread. The seven year old took it thankfully with his angelic smile and bit into it happily, wagging his feet in a way that was impossible not to consider cute.

Ignoring Isamashii, I grinned before crawling over to the oblivious boy with hair the color of red wine. "I'm going to eat your toes! Watch out, Nagi!" Tickling his feet and making a show of nibbling on his naked toes, I laughed as he squealed and giggled with delight.

"No, Nee-chan!"

"Rawwwwwr!"

"Eeeeee!"

"Oh my god."

With a big smile, I snaked a hand around Nagato's foot, dragging him off the couch and into my arms. Nagato's arms instinctively came to wrap around my neck before I turned to scowl at Isamashii, "What?"

"You guys are sickeningly adorable. I think I got a toothache from just looking at that. He's getting too old for that kind of stuff anyway."

I snickered slyly, Nagato leaning back to look back and forth between us before his expression folded into a bright toothy grin. He obviously didn't care about what was happening, just that there was food to eat. He chewed happily before offering a piece of his bread with me. With a squeal on my part, I made the noises of a monster as I pretended that Nagato was far too tasty to pass up. He was just so cute!

As soon as Nagato was breathless from laughing too hard, I turned back to Isamashii with a crafty smile.

"What's with that face?" He sat up, stiffly. He usually got like this when he felt threatened or mocked and I still couldn't help myself when messing with him.

"Oh, nothing," I said in a sing-song fashion before my grin broadened, "I was just thinking that toothache might be from something else, tubby."

"Hey! It's not my fault I get stuck doing paperwork instead of actual missions," Isamashii pouted, "Besides, you like how much free time I have. I'm your go to babysitter."

"I know," my smile turned sweet before, with Nagato in my arms, I stood up only to launch myself onto his lap with my battle cry of, "Dog pile!"

"Kushina!" Isamashii grumpily yelled while Nagato squealed in my ears. Pachi began to yip and nip at y fingers but her tail was wagging excitedly. She knew this was a game.

I giggled to myself before pulling away from the two of them, "Fine, fine. I'll be back when my shift is over. Nagato, baby, I love you!"

"Love you too, Nee-chan."

"Ugh."

I merely snorted at Isamashii's blatant dislike for the utterly adorable, before waltzing out flippantly and shutting the door with a distinctive click.

I sighed, groaning when I realized how knotted my hair had gotten. No time to brush it. With a grieving sulky mood, I wound up my long hair into a messy bun before sprinting to the gates.

The journey was a short one, as it always was, and nothing of importance occurred. Soon, possibly too soon, I stood at the gates and noted my shift partner. I sighed. Fate had provided him as the second gate keeper.

"Kushina-chan!"

I winced, internally praying that today wouldn't go as bad as the other days did. It was misdirected hope. Bad things always happened with him around.

"H-Hello, uh, Hajime-san."

Why, oh why was I getting assigned on shifts with him?

A lot of cool things came from growing older, like promotions and achievements, certainly. But one thing I was never going to be a fan of was boys. They were never cool. Especially boys like Hajime that were so lost in their teenage hormones that they tended to forget that I had said, politely and as nicely as I could, no.

"San? You're so formal, Kushina-chan!" Hajime grinned before biting into a rice ball. He leaned against the side of our post, trying to look as cool as he was able to. For most girls my age, he would have been described as good looking, and the catch of his year but I wasn't most girls and he was out of luck. He only looked weird. Hajime scratched at his tan skin before mumbling out shyly, "I may be older than you but I think we're close enough to drop the pretenses. We see each other almost every day."

Be nice, just be nice.

Easier said than done.

"Sorry," I murmured, fumbling with a stray lock of my hair, "It's just that your older than me…I'd feel so disrespectful."

Hajime out right laughed before his empty reached out to touch my arm. I shuddered, wishing that there was more than just a bandage wrapped around to keep his skin from touching mine. I hated boys. Most of them anyway.

I tried for a polite smile although it probably came off more like a grimace. Nevertheless, Hajime's reply was a toothy grin of his own. His face flashed in my mind, shining blonde hair and ever curious cerulean orbs. I swallowed.

Instantly I felt my cheeks warm up before I shoved Hajime's hand away and strode past him to head into the little shed that connected up to the look out's tower. Let him deal with the paperwork of leaving and entering shinobi, I was not in the mood to play around.

With a huff, I climbed up the stairs and ignored Hajime's indignant ramblings. The view from up so high was always something that I could calm down at, and think. It was part of the reason I was so hesitant to even try for anything than chuunin. Of course, technically, I was archived and listed as a tokubetsu jounin, specializing in fuinjutsu but with an apprenticeship in iryo-ninjutsu under Tsunade. Considering that, when the Second Shinobi World War was just barely coming to a close, I probably should be more active in my missions.

I thought back to Isamashii. He was actually one of the better trackers to come out of the genin corps from our graduating year, possibly the best. Yet he was held back by Pachi, as she proved nearly impossible to train into the life of a shinobi. For me, it was because of Nagato. Not many shinobi actually took war orphans back home with them so my situation proved to be a rather, uh, unique one. I mostly got stuck on high ranking in-village missions just so that I could stay close to Nagato. Most of what I had to do consisted of mainly making new tags and sealing scrolls so it wasn't exactly the most exciting stuff.

Still, anything for Nagato.

The young boy had already sacrificed much in the way of socializing and spending his time in an actual schooling program. That wasn't even taking into account all of the hardship of sometimes being left alone when no one could come to look after him. He was a secret, in a lot of ways, from the prying eyes of higher ups. To everyone else he was just a mere boy who kept his long bangs in front of his eyes as he was trained to hide them. I clenched my hands, working my jaw slowly with the anger and pain it always made me feel just to think of him having to hide a part of himself. He had to do it though. I knew very little of who I could trust these days as it seemed that Danzou had gotten his claws into most of everything so some precautions had to be taken.

I would never let him have Nagato.

"Kushina!"

I jumped from my spot in the tower, startled out of my thoughts, and looked down to meet dull amber eyes. My shackles rose at the sight of Tsunade's deflated gaze as I immediately rushed down the tower to meet her, ignoring Hajime on my way before leaving the post to envelope the haggard and weary woman in a tight hug.

"Tsunade?" I asked in a tiny voice, "Is everything alright?"

"Yes," she murmured, but tears filled her eyes at the blatant lie, "yes."

"What happened, Tsunade?" I inquired as I warily assessed her physical condition. She merely looked exhausted and covered in an impossibly tragic amount of blood. I sucked in a tiny breath before reaching my arms back into to give her an even tighter embrace, "Was it a teammate?"

A tiny sob left Tsunade's mouth, causing my mind to reel back.

"Yes," Tsunade murmured out and I blinked rapidly with concern. Who in the world would manage to…?

Oh.

My blood ran cold in my veins as understanding struck.

"Dan?" I asked softly and her reply was a very simple nod, her eyes looking lost. I brought a hand up to her face, wishing I were as tall as her already, before whispering softly, "It wasn't your fault…"

She sniffed, unconvinced.

Frantic, I searched for anything that could bring her back into my Tsunade. I brought my hand to my chest and instinctively touched the crystal as I always did in times of need for the past year since Tsunade had gifted it to me. Her eyes instantly locked on the precious blue mineral and I adjusted with it to bring it into a better light.

"See? I'm alive, Tsunade. I'm alive and I'm right here. Do you understand me?"

The blonde woman nodded before slumping forward, "I need a bottle of sake and some actual luck for a change."

"Of course," I murmured haplessly, "my place has tons of sake, remember?"

"I know," she mumbled, "I put it there…so that I could move in too."

I raised a brow in surprise but put off that train of thought to focus on Hajime, "I'm going to be taking her to the hospital for some checkups. I'll be back within the hour. Uh, also, it's probably best you forget this little scene. Tsunade isn't exactly the happiest drunk." When he gave me an unimpressed look, possibly fed up for my rude behavior by then, I gave him my best charming smile. Unexpectedly it actually worked for a change as he waved me away.

With a huff, I charged my arms with chakra before I maneuvered the nearly useless woman so that she leaned on me heavily enough that she wouldn't fall on her face the moment we started moving. With this, it was a slow but eventual journey to my apartment through the least populated areas in Konoha. Tsunade absolutely hated being looked at as weak.

"Kushina, why are you so tiny?"

Instead of replying I sniffed the air and sighed when I came to realize that Tsunade had, in deed, already had more than enough alcohol.

"Eh? I'm technically your aunt, you know. Better watch your mouth," I settled on saying when she poked my cheek childishly.

She made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat before reaching out hand to touch the blue crystal that swung around my neck. I resisted the urge to swat her hand away. The temptation was strong indeed.

"Why did you leave then, Kushina? Be a proper aunt and take care of me."

I was silent. I hated having this conversation with Tsunade—drunk or not, it made no difference. It only served as a reminder that I had abandoned her and as the trigger to the ever tantalizing question of 'what if's. What if I had stayed? Would he still be alive?

"Your face is scary, Kushina. Stop." Tsunade hiccupped before releasing a big long burp. She giggled, "Excuse me, auntie. I made bad noises, ahah."

"Yes you did, my dear niece. Now, let's see about getting you into a nice warm bed then. Does that sound nice?"

"Yes, yup, yep, uh-huh, yeah…hey, Kushina?"

"Yeah?"

"You did it too!" Tsunade giggled before noting loudly in my ear, "There's just so many different ways to say yes. It's even kind of funny. Like 'haha' funny. Haha."

"Haha," I repeated thoughtlessly, too focused on dragging her up the flight of stairs to my bedroom. Why couldn't she have waited to be in the village to be intoxicated?

"Kushina?"

"Hm?"

"Do you ever find it weird that there's like…a language we all speak?"

"No? Is this a trick question?" That's right. One step up, then another one…

"No…it's just…we all speak the same language yet we still don't get along very well. Everyone dies or we all just kill other people."

"Not always, Tsunade. You know this better than anyone else I know."

"Please remind me then, because I'm lost." She sounded so childishly confused that it was one of those rare moments I wished I had my camera on me. Man, it would be priceless to see her reaction to her drunk self.

"Some people use these words of ours to heal, but not only that. There are people like you who save people's lives. Who knows? Maybe someday the world will come to peace," I mumbled, amused by her unexpected line of thought and by my imaginary reenactment of her reaction to a photo of her slovenly drunk self. Maybe it would even be enough to scare her away from the booze?

"I didn't save Dan."

My stomach sank. Shit.

"Did you do everything in your power to save him?" I prayed the tough love act would do the trick. I just could never be sure. Not when Tsunade was so unpredictable.

"Yeah," she hollowly replied after I lugged us up the last set up stairs. I opened the door hastily and cursed under my breath when I noted that Nagato and Isamashii had fallen asleep on the couch. Tsunade's eyes fell on the two boys as she grinned happily, crooning out too loudly, "It's little baby Nagato! He's so cute when he's sleeping, isn't he Kushina?"

At her loud voice, Nagato's eyes opened lazily as he hopped back in surprise. Quickly, he let his bangs shroud his face before he left the still sleeping Isamashii on the couch. He always was such a light sleeper.

"Nee-chan?" he called out, tiptoeing lightly to look up through his bangs at me.

"Hi, baby," I murmured, reaching out a hand to stroke the side of his face, wiping off a stray bread crumb, "Did you have a good nap?"

He gave me a toothy grin before laughing, "Yeah, Isamashii even told me a story."

"Ohh," Tsunade leaned on me even more heavily, probably growing partially dizzy, "what kind of story?"

"He told me about the Bijuus. Or what he knew of them actually."

I stiffened, "I do hope he didn't trick you into thinking their monsters."

Nagato shook his head, "He only told me what you talked about with your team."

I relaxed and nearly beamed. It had taken a lot of convincing but eventually my entire genin team had subcumbed to what I had to share. Of course none of them knew that I was a Jinchuuriki, save for Hakuba, but they understood my firm belief that we were the cause to the devastation they brought. Isamashii was particularly prickly when it came to that but I was glad he wasn't spreading ill thoughts to Nagato.

"That's good, sweetie. Now, do you want to help me with something?"

"Yeah, Nee-chan!"

"I need you to get me a glass of water and a cup ramen from the cupboard. Can you do it?"

"Yes!" Nagato eagerly scuttled off while I busied myself in dragging Tsunade into my bedroom only to dump her on my bed.

"How cold, Kushina," Tsunade whined, even as she adjusted herself underneath the blankets. I snorted.

"Here!" Nagato announced, barging into the room with both hands occupied with holding what I asked for him to bring. I thankfully took them from him before setting the cup of ramen to the side for the hot water to do it's work. I ushered Tsunade to sit up in bed before handing her the glass of water.

"Really," I muttered, "what kind of bar lets in a blood soaked kunoichi in to get herself smashed like this?"

"A great one," Tsunade unhelpfully noted before taking a sip of her drink.

I rolled my eyes.

"Oh yeah, what are you planning on doing?" Tsunade asked and distantly I heard Nagato padding out of the room to wake Isamashii up.

"Doing?"

"About his education. I'd imagine that my old teacher has been breathing down your neck to get him enlisted. The war may be ending, but he knows a good opportunity when he sees it."

"He's fine for me just teaching him fuinjutsu," I sighed out, "for now. He wants Nagato to be in the Academy by the time he turns eight. That's about a year away from now but I still wouldn't be entirely comfortable with letting him around other people so soon..."

"It's been like two years, Kushina."

"So? Nagato is very shy when it comes to new people."

"Only because of you and your coddling," Tsunade declared.

I winced, knowing how innately true that was, "I'm doing my best..."

Tsunade patted my hand, "I will console you after I eat that ramen."

She went disturbingly silent when I handed her the cup of ramen as her eyes darkened once more, "It's my fault, Kushina."

"Hm?" I prompted before crawling into bed beside her, feeling the blood encrusted on her clothes scratch against my bare skin.

"I could have done more to save...him."

"You did all you could," I murmured quietly as I let her rest her head on top of mine.

"I don't think...I don't think I'm strong enough to do it anymore. So many people are gone now, Kushina. All I have left is you..."

"Don't forget the others," I started softly, taking the uneaten ramen out of her hand to put it back on the nightstand, "there's Shizune, there's Nagato, and Jiraiya, and your teacher, and there's all your colleagues at the hospital. Remember? You have so many people and we all love and appreciate you. You're the reason the hospital works as well as it does, y'know?"

Her breath hitched before she let out a barely restrained sob, "I know, I know. But that doesn't change that Dan is dead and so is...Nawaki."

ARC 2 – Part 1 – Family

"Any difference yet?" I asked, pacing in the room behind Mikoto and Nagato. The Uchiha girl shook her head, her lips pursed in thought while Nagato looked near ready to cry. I paused before quickly leaning down to pick him up and cradle him to my chest. He was getting so big…

"Are you sure we can't call someone with more experience with dojutsu in?"

I shook my head, rubbing Nagato's back as he whimpered in my ear. I took in a shaky breath before mumbling out softly, "You know why we can't do that. If word got out that he has the Rinnegan…" I shuddered, unable to continue that train of thought.

Mikoto huffed out a breath, sending up a flyaway strand, before standing up and placing her hands to her hips, "Is he experiencing any headaches? Is it taking up too much of his chakra reserves to keep up?"

I shook my head, "No, but Nagato deserves a normal life. He deserves to join the other kids in school and to come walk the markets with me… He shouldn't have to be stuck inside all day with only books and his pencils to entertain himself."

Mikoto made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat before throwing up her hands in defeat, "Why not try a hat for now? Or keep his bangs in the way? Hell, even a blindfold would work better, or a mask," she sighed, "He won't learn to shift his eyes back to anything different with us just waiting for it. For all we know, he's stuck with the Rinnegan forever."

"I refuse to believe that," I said stubbornly before walking, Nagato falling asleep in my arms, into our shared bedroom. Positioning him to the side to free up a hand, I shuffled in one of my drawers before pulling out a black sash, "Aha! Alright, now, Nagato honey?"

"Hmm?" He lifted his head up fractionally with puffy eyes and drool slipping from the sides of his mouth.

"I'm going to set you down, okay?"

"No, 'm tired," he mumbled out, a slight scowl coming to his face.

"I'll make katsudon for dinner if you wake up," I sing-songed gently into his ear before kissing it, "I'll even let you eat some mochi for desert."

He peaked an eye open, instantly suspicious but intrigued, "For real?"

"Yup, cross my heart and hope to die."

Nagato reeled back instantly with his eyes wide, "Nee-chan, don't die!" He began to cry, big fat tears coming to stream down in face in quick mere seconds. I couldn't help but chuckle, my own eyes a little wide with surprise.

"I could never! Didn't you know, baby brother? I'll stay with you forever," I promised, bringing him back in to look him straight, "but only if you're a good boy."

Hehe, scare tactics. Worked everytime.

"I'll be a good boy, Nee-chan, I pwomise!" He declared before wincing over his bitten tongue, "Ouch…"

I ruffled his hair before setting him on his feet and whipping the black sash out in front of me. I presented it to him with a grin, "Do you wanna look cool?"

"Yes!" Nagato jumped on his toes, clapping his hands, "I wanna be cool like you!"

Gosh, he was the cutest thing to ever exist, if only a little bit too innocent and sheltered.

With a grin, I wrapped the sash around his head, styling his hair while I was at it. When I was done, not a single strand of hair touched his forehead and his eyes were big with surprise. It was possibly the first time I had ever seen his entire face in such a long time... He looked entirely too cool with the way his swept back hair spiked up in the back.

"Epic," I announced, "but do you want to know why you don't have to hide your eyes to be cool?"

"Yeah..."

"Because this isn't something you shouldn't have to hide, understand? You're perfect the way you are," I smiled at him before leaning my forehead to his, "this is the way you were meant to be and the only reason you have to hide your eyes is because bad people will try to take you away from me."

"Bad people? Why?"

"You're special," I informed him, "and very important. People would want to use you for bad things but I won't let them do that. I want to make a deal with you," I murmured to him softly, wanting so badly that I didn't even have to say such things.

"What kind of deal?"

"If you are able to shift your eyes like Mikoto is trying to teach you to do," I started, trying to keep the frown off my face, "then you won't have to hide your eyes anymore. However, the bangs aren't working. I don't want you to get too clumsy on me."

"Alright...but what are we going to do now that my hair won't work?"

"Masks are really cool, you know," I informed him, "like super cool. Like, insanely cool. You would look so mysterious and you know what?"

"What?"

"You would get to go to school with the other kids your age."

His eyes widened, "I want a mask!"

Eventually, he got one. A simple one that was designed as a fox, intended for festivals that were thrown annually in Konoha. I was probably biased, but foxes, we both agreed, were really the best animal out there, aside from tigers, that is.

He started classes in two weeks.

ARC 2 – Part 1 – Family

Jiraiya

Such a choice was not technically his to make.

It was too heavy of a responsibility to place on him. He, after all, hadn't necessarily planned for much else other than a nice break from all the fighting to write a book and helping out a pair of orphan as any good samaritan of his standards would do. In fact, one might say he had been exponentially too kind. So kind, in fact, that he didn't need to extend his help any more than he did now.

However, the only thing making him think twice, was that in some ways the kids had actually grown on him. They were fighters, he knew as he could see it by the way they had fought tooth and nail to find him and his teammates in that god forsaken war zone. They could get far as ninjas. The danger in teaching them, consequently, was that he wouldn't be teaching just any simple, learning by watching, techniques. No, if he was going to teach them he wouldn't be half assed about it. Unlike what most believed, he really did have a conscious and leaving kids with false hopes of being strong only to get themselves killed was not, evidently, in his plan of action. If Jiraiya taught them he would teach them as if they were his own students, children of Konoha.

Therein laid the problem.

He might've been able to do it, if by chance, one of them turned out to be some unharnessed kekkei genkai user. He might have even been willing to train them and leave them in Ame, because that would be how he imagined destiny would want it. Dojutsu were always cool… But, as fate would have it, none of them were special in that regard. And so his teacher wouldn't be as lenient as he had been in the past few months with his messages. Soon, Hiruzen would be requesting him back and as the ever dutiful student he was, Jiraiya would have to leave.

Jiraiya had honestly never expected his involvement in children's lives would lead to him questioning his loyalties.

Could he call it that?

An image flashed of Yahiko catching onto his signature grin. Er, that was sort of…embarrassing.

"Sensei?" Konan's light and melodic voice called up from her place curled up by their fireplace with a book in hand, "Can you help me with this kanji?" She squinted at it, her flashing amber eyes reminding him of a certain blonde woman who had continued to visit him every month or so in Ame with the goal in mind that he return.

"Before that," Jiraiya spoke up, done with deliberating his plan of action, "can you go get Yahiko? I believe he would be moping his bedroom."

Konan giggled, but she set the book safely aside from the dancing flames before standing up with a teasing grin, "I think he's only like that because you refuse to teach us anything useful. You know one day they'll catch us and all of the illegal fishing we do."

"Oh hush," he said chidingly even as he was gazing up at her almost warmly, "it's not like any of us could cook anything other than that!"

Konan brought her lips out in a tiny pout before waving a dismissive hand and walking away to go do as he asked.

She always had been the level-headed one of the two. Different from Yahiko, she didn't actually irritate him half the time.

Not even a real minute had passed before Konan came back with a sulking Yahiko at the back of her heels.

"What did you need us both here for?" The orange haired boy frowned, gazing at Jiraiya with his always honest gaze. That was something that was quite rare to see in someone. Honesty was often so hard to come by these days.

"I," Jiraiya started, deciding on how to say his next words, "am willing to teach you both—"

"Oh, hell yeah!" Yahiko cheered and Jiraiya resisted slapping his own face. Konan did it for him as she swatted the boy's raised fist from out of the air.

"Pay attention," she hissed, then, as if to lessen the sting of her blow and words, she smiled at him warmly. It actually looked more like she were looking at him as fondly as she would a pet dog.

Jiraiya cleared his throat before continuing on, "I'm willing to train you but only on one condition."

"Condition? Like what?" It was Konan who asked, ever the curious one. But unlike how Yahiko went about it, she was actually polite.

"You both will have to come back to Konoha with me and become citizens and ninja there."

They both stilled, eyes widening.

"B-but!" Yahiko sputtered out, "we need to stay here! How else would we be able to make the rain—"

"If I left you here now do you know what my prediction of your fate would be?" His voice had never sounded so cold to his ears before but…there was a reality out there that did not treat idealistic children kindly.

"Huh?"

"Fifteen. You wouldn't make it a day past your fifteenth year."

"You don't know that!" Yahiko shouted back, voice cracking from the amount of vehemence he put into his words, "You don't know the future!"

"I may not know the future," Jiraiya snapped, "but I have seen war. What in the world do you think you can accomplish by yourselves? How much did your parents accomplish in this war, other than leaving you behind?"

Yahiko shuddered with rage, hissing in a breath as tears began to brim at the edges of his eyes. He said nothing for a full minute before storming back off to his bedroom.

Konan stood, staying behind, an odd expression on her face.

"What is it, Konan?" Jiraiya asked, perhaps a bit too harshly. She didn't flinch.

Instead, the young girl gazed upon him almost serenely as a small, pained smile flitted to her lips, "The answer to your question."

"Hah?"

"What our parents accomplished," she came to fold her hands behind her back shyly before grinning, "well, they brought us into the world and kept us safe. It's because of them…that we will be able to change the world so that we don't disappoint them."

As always, a child's life was focused on merely one thing: receiving their parents love and earning their respect.

Jiraiya sighed, defeated, before standing up to head over to Yahiko's room. He didn't bother knocking before opening the door and nearly let out an oath as a kunai was sent straight at his head. He met the anger filled brown eyes.

"I've been practicing," Yahiko explained, another kunai poised delicately in his hand. It nearly made him twitch when he noticed the wrong grip the boy was using on the pointed weapon. Well, he sort of had to give in, didn't he? Otherwise the kid was bound to impale himself on his own shuriken.

"Listen," Jiraiya murmured, trying for a softer tone. He winced when it only came off as demeaning and self-deflective.

"No, you listen! We're going to change—."

"There are reasons why I can't teach you anything unless you're a part of the Konoha system. But," Jiraiya raised a finger to pause whatever complained Yahiko was about to voice, "you can save your nation in the future when you're ready to. The Hokage is actually a very understanding man, and," Jiraiya sighed knowing he would inevitably have to say it, "he could maybe put you on a contract."

"Contract?" Konan asked from her position behind him, blinking up at him owlishly.

Talking to children, remember?

"Meaning that you're loyalty is for a limited amount of time. We usually only restrict them to hunter-nin but I think he could make an exception."

"Fine," Yahiko murmured after coming to understand what the Sannin was saying, "I guess we could go if it's only for a short amount of time."

"Excellent."

ARC 2 – Part 1 – Family

Minato

"So you've called us?" Kushina prompted, obviously confused by the lineup as she gazed at the gathered shinobi. His old genin teammate, Shikou Nara, stood lazily besides him with the dullest expression. It was a peculiar match up, but not a stretch. Her gaze lingered on him and he refused to admit it could have been a trick of the light. He noted, almost listlessly, that she had a pair of cat ears atop her head by way of the red headband. Minato wondered how in the world she could ever look anything less than perfect. He mentally saved the image of her frumpy expression to his head. Ack! He was getting back into that mode that Mikoto warned him against.

"What's with your head?" the Hokage asked and her face flamed up.

"I-I didn't even remember!" Kushina stuttered out, fumbling to rip the cat ears from her head, "I was, uh, playing with Nagato before this."

So cute, she wasn't even aware of it!

Cough, Minato, get your head back to business. Business!

"Right...," the Hokage looked unimpressed before he went on, "I have a mission for the three of you, if you're willing. It's intel gathering and a retrieval."

Kushina blinked, "So...if that's the case, Minato and Shikou-san will be collecting the intelligence and I'll be retrieving a...thing? I don't know how that would work out. That's practically two missions in one."

"Technically it is, but it's killing two birds with one stone if I assign it as one. Of course, you will be paid for the price of two B-ranks if all goes well."

"What are the mission details?" Minato asked, adjusting his track of thoughts away from Kushina. If she knew how frequently his mind went to her, she'd probably be a little freaked out. He restrained releasing a sigh.

"Well, it takes place in an unrenowned village called Taiyogakure. Despite how quiet the place usually is, there have been rumors floating about of a faction of criminals forming a crime syndicate and the base of operations being there. Taiyogakure is very close to Kumogakure, which is why the pay is so high. You must be very careful not to be seen or caught," the Hokage gave them each a very distinct expression of warning before continuing, "The intelligence work comes in from you having to find out where they are and the retrieval comes in when you must capture the head of the group, who is known by the name of Jin. Do you all understand?"

"Yes," we chorused.

"Do you accept?"

"How long would it be?" Kushina asked, frowning, "Nagato will be starting school in two weeks…"

"That would depend on how quickly you can complete the mission," the Hokage replied, "I could assign another person with the necessary skills to go in your place, if you would want."

Kushina seemed to weigh the options in her mind, hands on her hips while her face tilted to the side before she huffed out a sigh, "I'll accept the mission."

"Wonderful," the Hokage murmured. "Assigned team leader is Namikaze-kun. The mission starts as soon as you three leave the gates."

"Right."

ARC 2 – Part 1 – Family – End